Trump will reportedly host Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman next month
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration is preparing for a visit to the United States by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman next month, in what could be the first state visit to the United States by a foreign leader in Trump’s second term, according to several people familiar with the planning.
Work is underway to prepare a package of agreements that Trump and the crown prince could sign or witness during the visit, U.S. officials familiar with plans for the trip said. The trip is tentatively scheduled for Nov. 17-19, but the timing and status of the visit could change, according to two people familiar with the planning.
Those people and the officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the trip before it is announced.
The planned visit will be the crown prince’s first to the United States since the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul during Trump’s first term in 2018.
US intelligence agencies said Prince Mohammed likely directed the assassination, which led to US sanctions against several Saudi officials. He denies his involvement. But in the years since, both the Trump and Biden administrations have sought to improve ties with Saudi Arabia.
The first major foreign trip of Trump’s second term was to Saudi Arabia.
via News
The first Trump administration tried unsuccessfully to get Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords, the agreements that normalized relations between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan.
The Biden administration attempted to negotiate a similar deal, but those attempts were derailed by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. A tenuous ceasefire in Gaza that Trump brokered has given the administration new hope that Saudi Arabia could join the Abraham Accords.
Details of the deals to be signed during the planned visit were not immediately clear, but many are expected to be trade and business deals under the framework of a Strategic Economic Partnership that Trump signed with the crown prince during the Republican president’s visit to Saudi Arabia in May.
A bilateral security agreement, long sought by the Saudis, is also under discussion, officials say. Trump signed an executive order last month offering security guarantees to Qatar, Saudi Arabia’s Gulf neighbor, following Israel’s attack on Hamas leadership in Doha.
MAGA does‘your mom’jokes
Your supportFuelsOur Mission
Your supportFuelsOur Mission
We make the headlines.
Serious questions deserve better than high school humor.
We remain committed to bringing you the unwavering, fact-based journalism everyone deserves.
Thank you again for your support along the way. We are truly grateful for readers like you! Your early support helped get us here and strengthened our newsroom, keeping us strong in uncertain times. As we continue, we need your help more than ever. We hope you will join us once again.
We remain committed to bringing you the unwavering, fact-based journalism everyone deserves.
Thank you again for your support along the way. We are truly grateful for readers like you! Your early support helped get us here and strengthened our newsroom, keeping us strong in uncertain times. As we continue, we need your help more than ever. We hope you will join us once again.
News themezone Support
Have you already contributed? Sign in to hide these messages.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment and the Saudi Embassy declined to comment. The long-awaited visit was first reported by Bloomberg.
___
News writers Aamer Madhani and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.